Israel to Withdraw some Troops from Gaza Amid new Campaign Planning
GAZA: Israel has said it will withdraw some troops from Gaza as it prepares for an intense campaign to continue there for “six months at least” as well as expanding preparations for a Lebanon war, a senior official has said.
There is growing international pressure to curb an offensive that has so far killed nearly 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children.
Even Israel’s staunchest ally, the US, which rejects calls for a ceasefire, has started pushing the government to scale back the ferocity of its attacks.
Plans to send some reservists home from Gaza, confirmed on New Year’s Eve, mark the start of a new stage in the war, a senior official told Reuters, and may be presented as a partial response to those demands.
But Israel still expects heavy fighting in Gaza for much of 2024 as it hunts for senior Hamas leaders, even if there are fewer troops on the ground.
“This will take six months at least, and involve intense mopping-up missions against the terrorists. No one is talking about doves of peace being flown from Shejaiya,” the official said, referring to a Gaza district that has been the scene of heavy battles. Reuters did not identify him by name.
Not all of those returned from Gaza will go home. Some would be prepared for rotation to the northern border with Lebanon, amid fears of a wider escalation of the conflict, the official told Reuters.
“The situation on the Lebanese front will not be allowed to continue. This coming six-month period is a critical moment,” the official said, adding that Israel would convey a similar message to a US envoy conducting shuttle missions to Beirut.
Tension Escalating
Even as tensions appeared to be escalating, the US said the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier strike group, sent to the region in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks to deter actors such as Iran from entering the conflict, and would return home.
However it will be replaced by the amphibious assault ship the USS Bataan and its accompanying warships, the USS Mesa Verde and the USS Carter Hall.
Israel and the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah have traded near-daily volleys of missiles, airstrikes and shelling across the UN-controlled blue line separating Lebanon from Israel since the 7 October attacks in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians.
On Monday Israel’s military said five soldiers were injured by attacks from Lebanon, and Israeli forces hit Hezbollah “military sites” and “launch posts” across the border.
Hezbollah meanwhile said four of its fighters had been killed in southern Lebanon, without giving any further detail.
Security sources told Reuters that three were killed in an Israeli raid on two houses in the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila near the border. It was not immediately clear if the fourth fighter, whose death was added to the toll hours later, was killed in the same raid.
- By Agencies